1. Interlanguage-stretching activities within a task-based empirical pedagogy Tom Means, tmeans@marlboro.edu Marlboro College, Vermont, USA Larry Selinker, larry.selinker@nyu.edu New York University, NYC Researchproductionassociates.com

2. Definition of Interlanguage (IL)- stretching in this study IL-stretching of Accuracy IL-stretching of Delivery (Fluency)

3. Definition of Empirical Pedagogy Following Han and Selinker (1999) Input-Heavy TBI (Means, 2006) Underpinned by Cognitive Approach (Skehan, 1998)

4. Input-heavy TBI (of Italian as a FL in U.S.A) (Needs Analysis) Pre-task –Input floods –Task-relevant production activities During-task –Time pressure –Recording Post-task - Self-transcript - Grammar activities

5. Input-Heavy TBI as Empirical Pedagogy Research base Institutional implementation –Large US university (3 rd year) –Small US university (2 nd year) TBI as a vehicle for: –Copious input, interaction, output, feedback

6. The Study Central Hypothesis of the study: TBI will better promote accuracy and fluency than TI of Italian as a FL.

7. The Study Ecologically valid –Representative –Intended audience: researchers, teachers, administrators, students Fine-grained 9-week method comparison study involving TBI and TI of Italian as a FL

8. The Study: Who/When/Where Participants Research Setting(s) Subject recruitment and selection Treatment calendar

9. The Study: Treatment of TBI Group Research-based –Primacy of input –Psycholinguistic merits of output Three-phase cycle Types of tasks

10. The Study: Treatment of TI Group Empirical base 4-phase cycle

11. How were the independent variables manipulated consistently? Methodologies of language instruction –Task-based Instruction (TBI) Unit of analysis = 3 task cycles –Traditional Instruction (TI) Unit of analysis = 3 textbook chapters

12. Dependent variables Accuracy –Grammatical gender agreement in the noun phrase Determiner-noun agreement –un fratello; *uno fratello –Il mese; *i mese Noun-adjective agreement –piatto giallo; *giallo piatto –Il mese scorso; *la mesa scorsa Fluency –Oral fluency (spoken syllables per minute) –Written fluency (written words per minute)

13. Measurements Battery of 4 tests –Controlled-production tests Test 1: Create Complete Sentences Test 2: Narrative Rewriting –Spontaneous-production tests Test 3: Narrative Retelling Test 4: Family Tree Data collection

14. Results of statistical analyses

15. Accuracy Results –In controlled tests Marginal advantage for TBI group –In spontaneous tests Marginal advantage for TBI group

16. Accuracy results Test 4: Mean Scores of D-N GG Agreement Accuracy in Family Tree Test 0 20 40 60 80 100 PretestPosttestDelayed PT TBITI No statistical significant differences.

17. Fluency Results Oral Fluency Significant advantage for TBI group Written Fluency Significant advantage for TBI group (at posttest only)

18. Oral fluency gains Statistically significant difference for TBI at both times; none for TI.

19. Written fluency gains Statistical significance for TBI group at both points. For TI, only at delayed

20. Examples from the data Analysis of accuracy from Test #1 TI subject # 5080 PretestPosttestDelayed Posttest la forma la forma*forma TBI subject #3262 PretestPosttestDelayed Posttest *il spettacolo*il spettacolo lo spettacolo

21. Examples from the data Analysis of oral fluency from Test #3 TBI subject # 6211 –Pretest performance: 58 syllables p/m –Delayed posttest performance: 107 TI subject # 5080 –Pretest performance: 80 syllables p/m –Delayed posttest performance: 82

22. Discussion Central Hypothesis of the study: TBI will better promote accuracy and fluency than TI of Italian as a FL. Was the central Hypothesis retained? –Fluency mode –Accuracy mode

23. Why was IL better delivered by Input-Heavy TBI? Teacher is decentralized Collaborative, structured input Meets head-on the challenge of producing spontaneous oral language

24. Why was IL better promoted with Input-Heavy TBI? (at a marginal level) Language as vehicle and object Engagement of rule-based mode Problems with the language feature in question, grammatical gender (Swain, 2005)

25. Implications For language instruction in foreign language settings –a “usable” pedagogy that is empirical For research in Second Language Acquisition

26. Conclusions Input-Heavy TBI as an Empirical Pedagogy – Empirical method comparison study Analyzing fluency and accuracy improvement (IL-stretching) –Contributes some evidence of TBI’s effectiveness –Creation of replicable TBI model, “Input-Heavy” that is flexible and adaptable –Initiation of a TBI line of study that is fundamentally an educationally-relevant endeavor

27. Bibliography Han, Z and Selinker, L. 1999. ‘Error Resistance: Towards an Empirical Pedagogy.’ Language Teaching Research, 3.3, 248-275. Means, T. 2006. A Comparative Study of Task-based and Traditional Instruction of Intermediate Italian: Findings on Accuracy and Fluency. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, New Jersey Skehan, P. 1998. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: OUP Swain, M. 2005. ‘The Output Hypothesis: Theory and Research.’ in E. Hinkel (ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.